


On the shore of the Sea of Possibilities

by InsaneScriptist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Byakuran is a manipulative genius, Fred is a gore bunny, Gen, Harry is a suspicious little shit, Harry may regret this, Runaway Harry, but still not enough, don't take candy from strangers, like Byakuran
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-05-26 12:58:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6240274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneScriptist/pseuds/InsaneScriptist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Escaping his relatives after first year, has consequences which end up with Harry being permanently displaced in time. Somehow it’s not surprising that there’s a mafia boss with a love of marshmallows willing to take advantage of it. At least Harry’s benefiting too… but is he really? Or has he fallen into a trap? The sea is capricious and the shore is never as safe as it appears.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The beginning of a summer of freedom

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Shadowblayze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowblayze/gifts).



It begins with a thought. The thought is, ' _I don't need my relatives_.' It's followed by a few others, ones where Harry knows they don't want him and have made that clear. He doesn't have to stay with them. He has money, a trust vault full of it and he knows how to take care of himself. How to cook, clean, do laundry and so on. Going to Hogwarts doesn't mean he's forgotten how to do all that. So he's going to escape his relatives.

Well to escape his relatives, the first thing Harry has to do is avoid meeting the Dursleys at Kings Crossing. This is something Harry knows. His relatives don’t care for him, so he just has to avoid them long enough for them to not bother him or to try and find him. Make them not look for him once they leave. He can send a note or a letter to them; have Hedwig deliver it one night, saying he’s at a friends home for the summer. He's already got ideas of what to say...

That’s plausible right? He’s got money, so all he needs to do is exchange some of it for letter stuff and send it even if he could send it on parchment but there's only so far Harry's willing to anger them, in case he does end up having to stay with them. Maybe apologize for the trouble? The Dursleys liked it too much when he had to apologize for ‘costing’ them… so maybe he could return that Christmas gift of a mere fifty pence. He knows he’d get yelled at for that, but he has no plans to return to their home and probably be locked up in Dudley's old second bedroom. They’re relatives; not family.

His friends are going to be seeing their parents for the first time since Christmas at least for Hermione since Ron and his brothers stayed at school… and Mrs Weasley seems like a good mum. She knitted him that Christmas gift and send homemade goodies. She’d want to fuss, so he’d have to be seen getting off the train but he’s got his father’s invisibility cloak so he could hide under that too. He's planned this as well as it's going to get planned, now all he has to do is put it in action. He wants to tell Ron and Hermione, but while Ron would be all for it... Hermione wouldn't be. She'd tell a teacher or someone and his plan wouldn't work. So he doesn't tell them. He can visit Ron in a few weeks and stay for a few weeks. Maybe the rest of the summer.

It’s a close call but two hours later, he’s managed to fool his friends into thinking he’s gone back to his relatives. Hiding out on the train turned out to be a good idea, although only a little mortifying. Who knew that some of the seventh years who could apparate would stay on the train? He didn’t know what the ‘apparate’ word meant -was it a spell?- but he did know that it was mentioned as a way of travel. And because they didn’t need their parents to take them home and the train would stay in the station for the rest of the week if not all summer, it was an unexpectedly popular ‘romantic’ spot.

As Harry had learned as he tugged his trunk through the hall. The main benefit of this was no one noticed the trunk as an oddity being too enamored with their partner.

Thankfully the barrier between platform 9 & 3/4s allowed him to pass through. Then he was free. Two hours after he was ‘due’ to meet his relatives was enough time for Dudley to be bored, throw a tantrum and force his relatives to leave. So he was free.

Magic was wonderful and he was free of his relatives.

* * *

 The problem is that soon after sending Hedwig off with the letter, he’s kidnapped. Or at least that’s what he thinks has happened; his head is fuzzy enough that he can be certain he’s been drugged. He did send the letter off with the fifty-pence; he probably would have sent it off with a dung-bomb too but that wouldn’t fit through the mail slot. He knew that. What else did he know?

Earlier that day -was it still the same day?- Harry had discovered a reason to be very angry at his relatives but he couldn’t act overtly against them. He had learned that lesson years ago. That’d get him excessively punished but if he did something that was accidental then he’d still get punished but even if he did his chores perfect he’d still get punished for existing. For intruding on their ‘perfectly normal family’ or ‘being a waste of money’ or ‘a freak’. Even then, Dudley could _always_ make it **worse**.

However that didn’t mean he couldn’t act through intermediaries. Like say, repo-goblins should the Dursleys fail to produce records that they spent his family monies on his care and health. That was a nice bit of vengeance.

Speaking to the goblins was enlightening, but Harry had been rather suspicious about a lot of things anyway. It was part of why he ran away from his relatives in the first place. Maybe it was knowing that he was being sent back to his relatives but he had looked back over the time he had spent in the magical world and there were things that didn’t make sense. A lack of logic on explained so much and as an excuse, it wasn't good enough. Far from it.

Like why Hagrid took him to Daigon Alley? Why Hagrid had been sent at all, after a lack of response for his letter? His letter which was first addressed to the cupboard under the stairs? He knew Hermione and a few other muggleborns had been escorted by Professor McGonagall or some other member of the staff, so maybe if they were busy with school business but why not an actual professor? Or why Hagrid had his trust vault key?

Hagrid was a friend, but suspicions won out and Harry wasn’t blind to Hagrid’s faults. Like being a little slow, unable to keep a secret and why would his parents trust Hagrid with the key? He might be Keeper of the Keys at Hogwarts, but that was just the gate keys and so on. Not personal keys, in theory.

Turns out that they hadn’t.

While he had to pay the goblins a bit for copies of documents, he had learned about the will. A few more galleons and he had learned far more of his family history and the war in ten minutes than he had in the past ten months.

Basically it boiled down to bad decisions on who to trust cost his parents their lives, his godfather was in Azkaban and his godfather’s family was dead so he was pretty much Sirius Black’s heir now, legally speaking. His account manager said that Gringotts had never received records proving Sirius’ guilt one way or another but they knew Peter Pettigrew wasn’t dead. He came into the bank every couple of years.

Apparently the goblins had brought that information to light once to the Goblin Liaison Office and that information had never went anywhere. Because having Sirius Black in Azkaban benefited certain people, politically speaking. So the Goblins only did so once.

The goblin hadn’t had to say more, as Harry was capable of filling in the blanks. Sure, there were relatives -there were always hateful relatives enjoying their kin’s misfortune- that benefited but… there were others that benefited by having someone out of the way and dishonoured. People in the Ministry and those that were both part of it and not.

Like Dumbledore.

A man with three very fancy and prestigious titles. A substantial support base that generally had fond memories of the headmaster. The man was practically a king!

A man who had had his trust vault key for nearly ten years. Who visited Gringotts frequently to withdraw a hundred galleons at a time! Allegedly for Harry’s needs and care but Harry didn’t trust that; he’d never seen a knut of it. Hence sending the repo-goblins, because if his relatives didn’t have it, Dumbledore had committed theft. Legal theft, since Dumbledore had Harry’s key but if Dumbledore had lied about sending money to the Dursleys or the amount then that was _fraud_. Which the goblins could do something about. Legally. But it wasn't like the goblins had much political power beyond that of the economy where they were limited. The could threaten a rebellion, but somethings weren't worth the fuss. Like Sirius Black. _Fraud_ however was...

He could see it now. How Dumbledore had done things, taken advantage of circumstances and so on. He’d been very cagey about the ordeal after Quirrel -and really, Harry had killed his possessed professor- but he had revised his plans. He wasn’t going to stay at the Leaky Cauldron. Too obvious. Too easy. He had money. Did his parents have a spare home? He'd even take a shack on the sea, but as a last resort.

Unfortunately, there weren’t many options, magic wise and even less on the muggle side of things; muggles had a social services system and concerned, responsible individuals even if his neighborhood clearly suffered a lack of concerned responsible adult individuals. He did have a few choices for staying somewhere magical. The home in Godric’s Hollow was where his parents died, so he didn’t want to stay there. His father’s ancestral home had been lost in the war; torched personally with fiendfyre by Voldemort after one of the times his parents had fought him. Other Potter properties were destroyed or rented out, but at least the occupants kept paying rent, so Harry was unlikely to go broke in his lifetime. His Godfather’s ancestral home was in London and Harry could make his way over there. It was closest, but there were other homes throughout England and the world.

If the Blacks were an Ancient and Noble House, then he should probably get some better clothing than his cousin’s cast-offs and school uniform. Getting the stationary would be wise, but taking his trunk and owl-cage everywhere was just no. He needed an easy way to carry it all.

Thankfully there was a shop for that. One enchanted backpack later and his trunk troubles were gone. Putting his wand in the trunk was only sensible since he wasn’t allowed to do magic outside of school. He wasn’t sure how’d they detect how, since no magical official had come when he’d vanished the glass at the zoo so it had to be the wand they were tracking. Not magic itself. No wand, no problem. He had done magic without the wand before, so it wasn’t like he was completely defenseless.

The stationary was also easy to get. He wasn’t sure why, but Hogwarts used parchment -animals skins- for assignments, even though he knew that wizards also used paper. Turns out that was just traditional and something to prevent cheating since there was a spell to determine if someone had written on the parchment. Same for quills, although that was a bit trickier as people would trade and give away quills. The witch that explained it had simplified it for him, but it was something like comparing finger prints except it was magical traces that the parchment and quills could pick up and hold. Paper did the same but to a lesser extent; it was a similarity issue. Parchment was more similar to human skin than paper was so it held those traces better.

So he stopped for ice cream, wrote that letter to his relatives and sent it off. He did buy a few articles of clothing, but not much. Enough to change out of his Hogwart’s uniform. And new shoes; his trainers were falling apart on him, so they were replaced.

It had been an interesting day and well… no one was living at his godfather’s place and the goblins had said it was unlikely that the wards would kill him…

It figured that he had been kidnapped on the way there.


	2. Complex Calculations Requires Sacrifices for Perfection

The Bovino Famiglia weren’t involved in human trafficking. Technically. If they were they’d be profiting off of it. _Right?_

The Bovino were a low-level mafia famiglia in the northern regions of Italy, mostly made of scientists, engineers and people a bit too fond of colors without much common sense. It wouldn’t be accurate to say that they were all genii, but even the dumbest Bovino was above the average in intelligence. At least in academic matters.

Common sense and social skills weren’t really big things for them.

It might be why they were all hyped about getting that particular project functioning. See, the Bovino were very intelligent people, but that didn’t make them smart. It also didn’t make them very skilled. Sure they had weapons galore and made most of their money through the arms trade but they also did weapon development.

The problem was they were a mafia famiglia and having the smartest, most creative people re-training in weapon use and fighting other mafia famiglia’s peons who wanted their weapons without wanting to pay for them… that’d just be stupid and a waste of resources. However no one would really know if a person was better off being trained as a weapon to use against other mafia famiglias or if they were better kept in the labs developing new things. Not without being a seer or something and the Bovino didn't put any stock in such abilities either. No, they focused on science so advanced it was practically magical.

Hence the idea of the 10-Year Later Bazooka was conceived.

Making the 10-Year Later Bazooka was a solution to that issue. Because then they could test those born into the Bovino to see which path was best for each member! No more wasted time and effort training those it wouldn’t suit! No more wasted time and effort teaching beyond the mafia basics if the baby was a future gun-toting trigger-happy idiot!

But well, they weren’t going to test on their own famiglia. The famiglia needed the specialists with brains to do and invent things. The famiglia needed the trigger-happy idiots to protect them and their weaponry so they could have money!

So the Bovino weren’t technically involved in human trafficking. They weren’t profiting from it. _Technically_.

No increase in money would show in their ledgers from things like sales. No, they'd gain money through their dealing and power through that as well and rise out of their low-level status!

Harry didn’t know this.

Like Harry didn’t know the guy who kidnapped him was a ‘gun-toting idiot’ and pegged Harry as a runaway and not really one to be missed. And really, the cast-offs in the backpack meant nothing else interesting was in there so Harry could keep it.

Harry spent most of the thankfully quick trip back to Bovino territory drugged in the back of a moving van with a few other ‘finds’ they were going to test the 10-Year Later Bazooka.

* * *

  
Harry was awake and hungry when all of his fellow captives -a grand total of eight of them- were brought into the testing room.

Harry like the rest was lightly bound with some sort of colorful cord and held in place by fear because those were guns! They might be colorful, but Harry was thinking they were real. No one would make fake weapons that gaudy colored, so that they’d be mistaken for toys. Not without a purpose. He wasn't stupid and he knew brightly coloured things were often dangerous.

Unfortunately it didn’t look like some of his fellow captives had the same suspicion. One guy, a big burly fellow started mouthing off and Harry couldn’t understand a word. He only knew English after all, but he knew it wasn’t something like Russian or German. Not that he knew those languages but he thought he’d be able to recognize them, even if he didn’t understand the language.

Big and burly got shot.

In the _knee_. But there was blood everywhere and Harry was promptly terrified. This was **serious**. A lot more serious than a bludger to the nose. This was _**terrifying**_. Terrifying in a way that was different from the danger he'd faced at school. He knew magic was dangerous, how could he not with jinxes on brooms, curses and poorly-done spells. This was _different_.

His fear reached something of a new level when people in white coats appeared. He didn’t know much about the world or cliches because of his relatives, but he knew white coats that weren’t doctors with hospitals and nurses were often _bad news_.

It got worse when those in white coats pulled out what had to be a bazooka and fired it at the bleeding man. There was a puff of crazily colored smoke over the man. Then there was nothing left but ash.

The two white-coats discussed a few things -was that Spanish?- and then a few minutes later there was a puff of smoke over the collected ash and… Harry wanted to get sick. Big and burly wasn’t even alive anymore. It looked like someone had run the man through a meat-grinder and then reassembled him in a vaguely human-shaped fashion with no care taken to put internal things on the inside. Harry could see bones where they weren’t supposed to be.

Somewhere, about two people down the 'line' someone had gotten sick. Harry wanted to be but he could barely take his eyes off of the corpse. He turned his head to their captors instead and was shocked further.

The white coats and those with guns weren’t effected. The white coat had written something down on the clip board, but it seemed they were excited about this!

The next test subject was an adult woman. Young, maybe freshly out of school but clearly out of luck. The bazooka was shot again and this time, instead of ash, she was replaced by someone that looked like her. Except she was older, pregnant and soon turned hysterical. One of the guards restrained her and then some minutes later, the woman who disappeared was back.

Also hysterical. The _screams_!

There was some more talk then, but she was drugged and taken out of the room. Harry really did not want to know what would happen to her; he was young, not an idiot.

The third test subject was darkly displeased and spoke the same language as the white coats and the guards. He too was shot with the bazooka and changed within that puff of smoke. It was not for the better as it seemed a monster was in his place.

The monster was vaguely human-like. It stood on two legs, had two arms and four pairs of eyes. The skin seemed to tear and bleed as it grew and what had to be bone grew from its arms and legs and...

There was a lot of gun-fire and screaming and one of the white coats was killed, along with the person who was in front of him for the bazooka. The monster was dead. Bullets to the brain or something.

The white coats and the guards really didn’t care. The monster disappeared in a puff as smoke but as soon as the third test subject had returned, he was executed. Single shot to the head.

There were still dead bodies all around Harry. The mutilated man, the executed subject, three guards, one white coat and the guy that was going to get shot before him.

No one _cared_ , he was going to die and ** _no one cared_**. It wasn’t their problem like _it wasn’t his fault_! No, he had no choice about this so it wasn’t his fault.

Trying to kill these people wouldn’t work out. He couldn’t use magic over the summer but he needed to get away.

Far _far_ away. The bazooka was turned to him. He needed to get far far _away_ and **stay** that way.

Magic reacted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fred is a gore bunny. He does things like this. And yeah, the Bovino are crazy but there is a method to their madness. It just involves human trials and so on.


	3. Meeting a Masterfully Manipulative Marshmallow

Harry arrives on a rooftop in a crack of sound that’s deafening loud. He’s not sure where he’s at but there’s a few things he wants to do.

Like get out of sight, find out where he is and get to somewhere safer. If such a place can be found. He doesn't want to be close to any of those people.

Climbing down from the roof isn’t easy, but thankfully it looks like no one’s paying much attention to him or up high anyway. He has to wander across a few roofs to get to a place to jump down. It's not exactly easy, but it's doable.

He really has no idea where he’s at, but that’s only a mild thing to get stressed over compared to what he just witnessed and what’s happened at Hogwarts. No less dangerous but it’s something _normal_. At least more normal than what he had just witnessed. It is so normal and ordinary that not only is it comforting but funny.

He finds a place to rest. A small little fountain in some back street where he sits and lets his mind sort through what all had happened. There's only two ways out of here, a third if he can scramble up a wall and a fourth if he can manage whatever accidental magic he just did again. He knows it isn’t his fault, but it feels like it is. He knows he was only caught up in this by chance and that he could have done something other than run -he was a Gryffindor!

‘Some Gryffindor, _you_ are.’ Harry thought snidely to himself.

Gryffindors were more like the first guy. The one that had been torn apart and put back together all wrong. Clearly there was a time and place for bravery and at the mercy of someone armed with guns and mystery bazookas were not it.

Running away like this was a Slytherin thing to do, because being so Gryffindor got him in this mess. If he hadn’t been kidnapped, he’d be enjoying a Dursley-free summer without a care towards evil organizations. Because that’s what the people had to belong to. He'd been so focused and confident of success that he forgot to pay attention. He knew better than that. Harry-hunting had taught him to not forget to pay attention, but Hogwarts and all that included meant he had forgotten it. Somehow.

Clearly he needed to be more Slytherin. Not like Snape or Malfoy and his cronies. He needed to be more cunning and clever. More wary. So he wouldn’t be taken, robbed or killed. His only ambitions at the moment was to survive and avoid being sent to the Dursleys, which meant he needed his money and wits about him.

It was hard but Harry put the entire incident of horror in the same place he put killing his defense professor and the encounter with Voldemort hunting unicorns. It was his personal box of nightmares, filled with green light and high pitched laughter. The nightmares that maybe he was unwanted by his parents, before he knew the truth of how they died. The nightmare based on when Aunt Marge's dog Ripper had kept him up in a tree terrified. The nightmare of during the Quidditch match and his broom was jinxed but instead of getting back on, he had fallen. The nightmare about Fluffy, before he had learned to subdue the hellhoud... He had a lot of nightmares in that box; this would just be one more.

Then he got to work at surviving. He washed up a little in the fountain because he was sure it was a few days after he was kidnapped, so he probably smelled. He was also hungry, but that would mean dealing with people except… he had a nice way to be invisible without magic. He checked the street to see if it was still deserted and climbed up again, before pulling out the invisibility cloak.

* * *

 

A few hours later, Harry had found another rooftop. He had technically stolen some food at a market stall; he’d tossed down a few pounds -converted currency that it was because he had planned to go shopping for a few things that probably weren't in Diagon Alley sometime- so he hoped it was enough to cover for it.

He had escaped the evil organization but he was probably still in the same country. Just a different part of it, going by the language he heard. That was good, but not good enough; the accent was different but that didn't mean he was safe. Also he wasn’t in Spain, but in Italy. He had no idea where in Italy but at least he knew now. He could find some place to play tourist. Mingle. Get more information, find a way to get around and take care of himself. It was hard and stressful but better this than being shot by that bazooka or being with his relatives.

He almost missed his relatives, but this wasn’t so bad; his situation was already looking up. No chores, no hatred, no being shorted meals or locked up like an unwanted and unruly pet they had to watch. No being punished for existing or being talked down to. No being treated like a freak. 

It’s worth the trouble, Harry decides. He’s not really had a childhood like other people, so that he’s getting practice at being an adult on his own early isn’t that big a deal. He’s also never had a vacation before but this is nice. He can do that. He doesn't even have to be Harry Potter, the boy-who-lived to get stared at in Hogwarts' hallways by various witches and wizards in all sorts of years. That was only a little creepy.

He camps out on the rooftop, using his backpack as a pillow and the cloak as a blanket; he makes sure to cover all of him under it just in case. Many years of sleeping in a small cramped cupboard means once Harry is asleep, he knows he won't move unless he has a nightmare. Hiding under the cloak feels safe, but he knows he can't always stay under it.

In the morning he manages to find a bookstore and buys a language dictionary; he puts on his best face to get the clerk to take his money saying this was his special savings and he forgot to get it changed over. The clerk’s English isn’t great, but the point gets across. Harry even gets some of the local money back. The Euro is new to Harry but he thinks he got a fair trade on that exchange.

Harry knows he needs the book. Depending on where he’s at in Italy since the language dictionary is for Italian, it might take a while to get back to England because he has to go back to Hogwarts sometime and he doubts that some evil muggle organization will find him there. It’ll be terrible if he heads in the wrong direction because he can’t understand the signs.

That done he looks at the book. It’s got a section of helpful phrases, like how to ask where the bathroom is. That’s good. He already had to find a bathroom a few times before. Now he can ask.

He gets breakfast from a cafe and then explores the town, sticking mostly to tourist areas. People won’t be that suspicious of a foreigner there. Plus he learns which town he’s in, the region and so on of Italy he’s in. Mostly from one of those pamphlets that seem to try to get him to go to certain businesses and so on.

It’s past lunch time and that’s when Harry notices something most decidedly wrong. There’s no way it could be true. No way.

But a few minutes of questions, those innocent, curious ones like how long people have been working there and other signs point to that wrongness being true.

Magic is the only explanation for that. As terrible and as wonderful as it sounds.

It takes all of self-control, the Dursley-learned lessons to not let how disturbed he was show.

His hands are shaking as he finds a place to sit and shake. Not cry, because crying’s never done anything for him except make the Dursleys more annoyed and spiteful. So he shakes and shivers in the warm air, reminding himself to breathe.

A few days ago, Harry had gotten off the Hogwarts Express in the year of 1992, and _now_ it was 2002. He has no idea what to do now. He has no idea what even happened. Other than the bazooka and that's not something he's going to think about right now.

His plans are ten years out of date and **worthless**. His friends would have grown up and graduated. Ron might have been Quidditch Captain and Head Boy, before going on to play professionally. Hermione with her brains would have no lack of options.

However he’s still eleven, only finished one year of Hogwarts and in a foreign country with limited funds and no idea how to get more from his vault; he’s pretty sure the goblins don’t do transfers since a person had to physically withdraw a set amount. At least that was Harry has experienced.

Harry’s on the verge of a panic attack when a teenager comes up and asks him if he wants a marshmallow, or so Harry later learns.

It’s surprising and Harry lets out a small unmanly scream that he apologizes for.

“You speak Italian?” The white-haired teenager asks in English.

“No.” Harry says.

“I asked if you wanted a marshmallow. You seem rather stressed and eating something sweet is good for that.”

It’s probably very stupid and Gryffindor of him to take the marshmallow. It tastes very sweet and it does help. It’s distracting from his rising panic.  
Harry doesn’t know this yet, but sugar is a poison in high enough doses.

Too bad the Dursley’s never told him to not take candy from strangers.

“Thanks.” Harry mutters, trying to look and be normal.

Harry thinks he’s failed at that, since this guy was still there. Eating marshmallows. It’s kinda strange, Harry thinks, for someone not Dudley to eat them like that with handfuls at a time. The older teenager seems to be rather thinly built but he seems to be eating much neater than his cousin would, even as he eats them by the handful. He probably exercises more than his pig of a cousin ever did though.

He’s also probably one of the oddest looking people he’s seen. Harry’s seen a fair few of them since being introduced to magic but this guy isn’t magical. At least Harry thinks the other guy isn’t.

The guy’s hair is naturally white, so his eyebrows are too. He’s not an albino, because don’t they have red eyes? Not red-red but he’s pretty sure albinos don’t have purple eyes.

Harry doesn’t know much about fashion but he can tell that the marshmallow guy is well dressed, even casual clothing. He’s not sure how he knows that, but maybe it was from some of Aunt Petunia’s magazines?

“Runaway?” The stranger asks, drawing Harry’s attention back to him. “You’re certainly far from home.”

“My family is… elsewhere.” Harry lies. “I just wanted to get away from them.”

“Then I can go return you. Some places in Italy are more dangerous than others if you’re not aware of that.” The other teenager all but chirps.

Harry does shudder involuntarily at the reminder.

“Ah, see my dear runaway you’ve given yourself away. First off, there’s no reason to have a backpack in town. Not unless you’re carrying something like a bunch of water bottles or something. It makes it too obvious about what you are. If you’ve got all your precious possessions in there, then you find a place to stash it.”

Harry froze, but he has to admit the not-albino has made a point.

“Second, you don’t know the language here. It’s a bad move. It means you can’t pretend that your parents have moved here, so you’d have an excuse to be running around yet. Most tourists keep their kids close.”

Harry keeps quiet about his intentions but he felt the need to say that it was just going to be for the summer until he could get back to Hogwarts! Except ten years have passed already and while he could go back… just no. He’d know no one and be even more famous for whatever magical accident happened. He’d rather not.

“Third, you have no prepared story and know it. You’re not trying to lie to me now like you would if you did. Instead you’re keeping quiet, waiting for either an intervention, a miracle or an escape route. So you wanna know what I think?”

Harry did know want to know what the creepy teenager who just stuffed his face full of another handful of marshmallows though.

“I think you’re running away from a bad situation and you ran and hide until you couldn’t anymore. I’m not sure how you got out of England, but Italy is not the safest place to hide for people like you. Not if you don’t know anything. It’ll get you killed.”

‘ _People like_ **you**.’ Harry repeated mentally, keeping the sound of it accurate. ‘Does he mean those with magic?’

“And I think I can help with all of that. Even get you schooling. But as you don’t have parents or relatives here to pay me that means you are.”

“I can pay. I’m not short on money.” Harry says before he can stop himself. That’s stupid of him to say so! What if this guy was part of a gang? He has just made himself a target!

“But can you get it? More than what you have right now?”

Harry shakes his head no.

“So you see! You’ll have to pay me back some other way.” The older teen smiles slyly. “Be my friend? Friends don’t owe friends after all.”

Harry hesitates for a moment. He knows he needs someone that knows Italy, so he can avoid people like the white coats and those with the guns. Oh fuck, they were probably mafia since _this is Italy_. Even Harry knows a bit about that beyond the mafia being organized crime. Harry also knows he’s been missing for a decade, so he’s not even sure if he still has money in Gringotts. People can be declared legally dead right? It happened a lot on those dramas that Aunt Petunia watched sometimes. So he might not even have money or a place to return to back in England. It would just be too odd to show up on Ron or Hermione’s doorstep and he can’t do that to them.

The problem is that Harry can see no downside to the offer. This guy seems friendly enough, helpful and even kind. And Harry needs all that.

“Well, we can’t be friends if I don’t know your name.” Harry says, raising an arm to shake hands.

“It’s Byakuran Gesso,” the teen announces.

“Harry.” Says. Fuck. He didn’t think about a last name. Potter is out, the name Harry Potter is too famous. His mother’s maiden name? No, he doesn’t want to leave any obvious clues about his heritage. Which leaves… “Black.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Byakuran really is a masterful manipulator. Harry is oblivious to the manipulations too...


	4. The world is made of math

Harry mangles Byakuran’s name the first three times he says it. He gets coached on saying it properly. He has no idea what language it was in but he doubts it’s Italian. Italian names are like Marco and Antonio right? Not something like Byakuran.

Harry has to ask what that name means.

  
“It means ‘white orchid’ in Japanese. My mother is a little obsessed with her grandmother’s homeland and so I have a Japanese name. I quite like Japan and its sweets. They have these sweet dumplings…”

  
Harry lets his new friend ramble. Harry doesn’t space out while Byakuran does so because while the guy has excellent English, he sometimes has to describe words and Harry has to supply the right word.

  
It’s only after walking ten or so minutes, does Harry ask where they’re going.

  
“First we’re going to my house where you’re staying until some other arrangement happens. We’ve got the room for it.. My mother’s currently out on business and my father’s been dead for a few years now. He got shot, which happens even when you mind your own business sometimes!” Byakuran cheerfully pointed out.

  
Harry stared. Byakuran shrugged.

  
“Anyway, we’ll mostly have the house to ourselves. There’s some guards because my mother’s a successful businesswoman and some people would like to kidnap me for ransom. Or to murder me.”

  
“Won’t you get in trouble for slipping out?”

  
“Eh, no more than usual. It’s not like I’m unarmed, not trained or unable to call. Besides, I’d have to go back eventually for my marshmallows.”

  
This, is the moment that Harry decides Byakuran is a good guy. Possibly a little lonely and a lot strange, but a good guy.

  
“Also if you’re going to stay far far away from the lovely grey England, then you’ll need papers. An identity. Hospital records and so on. Most people would have trouble with that but my mother’s work has connections with the hospital and a few other places so we can have a new identity set up for you. You could leave all your troubles in your past life and stay my friend.”

  
“But school?” Harry asks, because school is more important than being the boy who lived. “My money?”

  
“Yes well, you’re a little different and the Gesso are too. We kinda collect those that are a little different and take care of them in the region. Great power, great responsibility, you know? Anyway, way back when my great-grandfather was young he did scholarships but my grandfather uh… what’s the word? Anyway, he felt that just the scholarships weren’t enough and took the young people away from the region so he built a school for those who aren’t quite normal. Some more so than others because some people qualify for certain courses. So getting you into school is no issue and textbooks are pocket change.”

  
“But I don’t want to be a burden.”

  
“Fine. We’ll go sometime in the next few weeks. You can properly say goodbye to your old life. It’s all in the past now. So, welcome to my home, my friend.”

* * *

 

Byakuran makes a point of enjoying himself, no matter what he does. It is what happens when you find the world criminally boring in all its iterations.

  
Yes, iterations because Byakuran is aware of those too. Some are different and that’s interesting and useful but that wears off. It wore off long ago. Novelty is few and far in-between.

  
The boredom bleeds through as does skills and knowledge and experience. Some things have to be done on a personal level like exercise but Byakuran knows how to synthesize medicine that is nothing short of a miracle and heal grievous injuries with an application of Flames that this world hasn’t discovered yet, that he knows of. It could be the difference that set this world apart, instead of say some woman in New York deciding to have cereal instead of a sandwich for breakfast. Or maybe someone ate some chicken instead of getting laid, getting an STD that goes untreated and causes an epidemic. Or a student fell asleep while studying. Or any number of differences.

They’re endless. It's sort of the point of the multiverse.

  
In many ways all the knowledge and experience makes things worse because he already knows all this and more but he’s required to go through the motions. People respect those who have proof of their education. It’s why a lot of his alternates go to various colleges and universes around the world even when they could teach their professors new things.

  
Time is an important difference between worlds; the parallel worlds theory is correct, but the name makes those that hear it think the future hasn’t already happened in some worlds. Some futures are already realized, some remain possibilities and some are less predictable than others. It’s why Byakuran prefers ‘multiverse’ because some ‘parallels’ diverged so long ago that the dinosaurs were domesticated pets and Byakuran’s alternate had trained a few.

  
The multiverse claims an infinite number of universes for each difference however minor. Byakuran knows that’s true, just like he knows that while there’s bleed through for every Byakuran searching for specific and current information takes something of a ritual, the Mare Ring and time. He has to sort for specific information then and that’s mentally exhausting because there’s billions upon billions of worlds that are so similar to each other that it’s ridiculous and that’s from random human interactions and decisions made daily. Add in other variables like time and crossing… it’s beyond human comprehension.

  
Being aware of that much and more means there’s bleed through even though he’s never found out a good reason for why or how it’s him. The bleed through makes him an ‘old soul’ as some would say. World-weary and bitter might be more accurate. While he may not remember everything enough bleeds through that Byakuran knows what it is to be old, happily married with many grandkids. He knows what it is to be a pioneer surgeon, how it feels to lose people on the table and the creeping emotional exhaustion of burnout. He’s been a lawyer, a teacher, a politician and everything. From a drug-addict to gigolo to a famous Hollywood director and once, the owner of Disneyland.

  
The fact is, Byakuran takes himself as living proof that even having everything, having done everything at least once as proof that human beings would never be satisfied. His alternates know this too, which is why some of them are planning to take over the world and gain the Tri-Ni-Sette. Remake the world. Some of his alternates are using the idea as a method of suicide, others are trying various different approaches until the right one is found, even though that right answer won’t work for all of the alternates. People are predictable. Isolate and control variables and so on. The world is made of math.

  
Byakuran, at least this version of him, isn’t against it because all the pre-cautions and planning and building makes sense. It could even be fun, depending on what sort of limitations and enemies are in place. Even if he decides or manages to not take over the world, there are reasons to make the bases.

  
Nuclear winter, for example. It was bad the first time. It was terrible the hundredth time. It was horrible the thousandth time. It was misery the ten-thousandth time. He hated it the hundred thousandth time. He let himself die instead of struggle the millionth time. Even knowing it was coming and how didn’t mean it was something that was fixable.

  
There were other ‘bad ends’ to the world than Byakuran taking it over, as Byakuran knew. Most people were under the impression that the world was a safer place nowadays.

  
Most people were idiots who didn’t know that humanity’s greatest enemy was itself and what it created. Science, the products of it and more had ruined more than a few billion worlds, and Byakuran knowing and sharing with his alternates knew that. The world was more in danger now than it ever had been. Civilization was terribly fragile and society nothing more than a shared delusion.

  
So Byakuran knowing all this took all the pleasure he could in what he did. Doing things himself, getting people to do things for him or on him… and if he got a lot of pleasure out of riling up people, well then why not?

  
Still, sometimes… even knowing all he does, living in a constant deja vu he finds something different. Like a young Harry Potter, who has managed to escape Dumbledore’s reach and end up a decade from where he should be.

  
Such a interesting and unexpected find. How interesting that this world, his world would be so different than what he expected. Surely there’d be some sign of that magical struggle that he should know about? Even so it won’t be that hard to find out.

  
The first feeling that Byakuran has upon seeing Harry Potter is that of wonder and enjoyment of this novelty.  
His first thought was, ‘I’m keeping it.’

  
Then in possibly the most impulsive thing Byakuran has done, Byakuran manipulates his find to going with him. It’s easy, so easy and this Harry… oh the potential!

  
Byakuran’s always wanted something new, different and it looks like he managed that. A matter of probability, not luck or anything else.

  
Out goes the old and in goes the new, and people have always liked new. Byakuran’s no exception to that, except imagine the possibilities now! How would a new factor change things?

  
Byakuran’s practically drunk off of the very idea of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I forgot this story existed for a bit. Sorry.

**Author's Note:**

> Plot bunny adopted from Shadowblayze and spurred on by her and a few others on tumblr. The plot bunny has been named Fred. What's up here is a bit more polished.


End file.
